


"The Germ from Hell"

by nondenomifan



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Possible COVID-19 Experience Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25798387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nondenomifan/pseuds/nondenomifan
Summary: Slayer healing has helped Buffy recover quickly from wounds that would kill most people. Does it work the same with internal infections?
Kudos: 3
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	"The Germ from Hell"

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I do not make any profit from this. All rights to the original characters and situations of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and all their affiliates during the original broadcast and any available syndication or production since.
> 
>  **Author's Notes:** Concrit is welcome and appreciated. Empty praise is also welcome, of course! Please, no deconstructive criticism (e.g., "This stinks," "Did you even watch the series?"). If you have a complaint about my writing, please give me details so I can improve. Thank you!

**Prompt:**[LJ hc_bingo](hc-bingo.livejournal.com) "Pneumonia"  
**Word Count:** 1728 (acc. to MS Word)  
**Warnings:** Possible triggers for those who have dealt with COVID-19  
**Spoilers:** Up to and including Angel S1E19 "Sanctuary" and BtVS S7E10 "Bring on the Night"

* * *

Buffy Summers had received many wounds that would kill an average human, and she’d been on her feet within the day after—well, most of them, with the exception of a couple where people cheated and used mystical influences. And, that just wasn’t fair. But, the point was, Buffy always rebounded fully healed from what would be mortal wounds for most people, and she did it sooner than most people would recover from getting their gallbladders removed. Not that she knew the average recovery time for a gallbladder removal.  
  
Somehow, though, she had gotten bacterial pneumonia. Of course, Spike and Giles swore up and down it was because she insisted on slaying in the pouring rain, the old geezers. But, no, she already knew what the doctors had told her: she got it from being exposed to the Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria somewhere—probably when her home was overrun with a bunch of young Slayers—and she was lucky it hadn’t turned into bacterial meningitis instead.  
  
Still, she didn’t feel lucky. She was lying flat on her back in a hospital bed, barely able to breathe, aching everywhere—especially her head and chest—unable to taste or smell her food and even having difficulty swallowing it because her nose and lungs were so congested. This was not a fun time. She didn’t even have the energy to sit up and watch the free cable TV or read the celebrity gossip magazines Willow had so thoughtfully brought her.  
  
“I wanted to be sure to bring you something fun,” Willow had said. “No books for Buffy! Only juicy Hollywood gossip.”  
  
Buffy knew she should probably have found that insulting, but she instead found it both endearing and comforting. Willow always knew the right thing to do and say in the moment to cheer her up no matter what was happening.  
  
But, she couldn’t even enjoy the magazines. She didn’t even feel like lifting her hand. She just felt too weak.  
  
This just—She felt so powerless. She was the Slayer! She was always strong. There was only one other time she had felt this weak—  
  
She let her sudden angry adrenaline fuel her reach for the telephone. She dialed.  
  
“Giles? No, I’m _not_ feeling better. I need to know, and I want you to be honest with me: Did you and your Watcher buddies do this to me?” Her shoulders sagged. “You’re sure they had nothing to do with it? You asked them? And, you were stiff upper lippy? Oh. Okay, then. 'Bye.”  
  
The rush of adrenaline gone from her, Buffy let the phone fall to the floor.  
  
A nurse was walking by and heard the clatter. She hurried in.  
  
“Are you all right, dear?”  
  
“Do I look all right?”  
  
The nurse just smiled at her.  
  
“I mean, do you need anything? I thought I heard something fall.”  
  
Buffy pointed to the floor.  
  
“That would be the phone.”  
  
The nurse looked in the indicated direction, spotted the phone, and walked to it.  
  
“Oh, dear. Let me get that for you.”  
  
“Probably should sterilize it, too. Hospital floors are really germy.”  
  
“You know,” the nurse said with a smile and a finger in the air, “you are absolutely right. I’ll get a candy striper in here to take care of that for you. Now, don’t you touch it until that’s been taken care of!”  
  
Buffy shook her head.  
  
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”  
  
The nurse left the room as quickly as she’d entered it, leaving Buffy once more alone in the gray and white cell with its wheat-colored bedspreads and crisp, white cotton sheets. At least the sheets were nice and cool. And, the room had vertical blinds, so there was no sunlight leakage to make her headache worse.  
  
But, everything else about this sucked. Everything. The food, the “friend” (her IV), the catheter that made her feel like she had to pee all the time, the process of using the bathroom for other things with all the stuff attached to her—yeah. “Sucked” was really the only word she could think of to express the experience accurately—well, that and “major suckage.”  
  
What she wanted to know was how long it was going to take for her Slayer healing to kick in and get this stupid infection out of her body, and why it hadn’t done so much, much sooner?  
  


* * *

Two Days Later  
“How’s the patient today?”

 _I have a name, you idiot._ “Mm, better, I guess.”

“Still having chills, headache, congestion?”

“Nope,” Buffy said with a shrug. “Well, no to the chills and headache. Still a little stuffy.”

“In your head, your chest, or both?”

“Mostly in my nose, but my chest still a little bit.”

“Mm,” the doctor said with a nod, stepping closer and putting his stethoscope in his ears. He stuck it down Buffy’s gown without bothering to warm it. “Take as deep a breath as you can for me. Good.” He moved the stethoscope. “Again.” Moved it again. “Good. Keep going.” He kept moving the stethoscope around her chest above her breasts as she breathed for him. He then walked closer to the wall. “Lean forward, please, and keep breathing deeply.” He put the stethoscope on her upper back and moved it around some more as he listened.

He finally moved away, pulling the stethoscope from his ears and looping it around the back of his neck.

“Your lungs do sound much better,” he told Buffy, “but you’re right, they are still congested. I think you’re ready to be discharged to home respiratory therapy, though. Sound good?”

“I don’t know. What is it?”

“You will have an occupational therapist and a respiratory therapist visit you at home to get your strength and breathing returned to normal. They’ll work with you until they think either you can do it on your own or you’re fully recovered. My guess is they’ll leave you to it because you’re a smart young girl.” He winked at her.

Buffy rolled her eyes inwardly.

“Sounds great. So, where do I sign?”

“Oh, the discharge nurse will be in soon with the paperwork and instructions. You take care, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Soon” turned into 4 hours later. Buffy had fallen asleep by the time the discharge nurse got to her room; after all, she was still weak.

Buffy got all kinds of goodies to take home, including the same weird doo-jobby they’d had her breathe into twice a day to check the strength of her lungs. They told her to continue those exercises.

_Oh, joy._

They also told her the occupational and respiratory therapists would be calling to set up appointments with her in her home. _That_ she could deal with because it meant she didn’t have to go anywhere, which she didn’t feel strong enough to do yet.

_Oh, my God, what about slaying? When can I get back to that?_

* * *

Two weeks later  
“Okay, the first thing we’re going to do is go for a walk outside,” the OT told her.

“Seriously? A walk?”

“Yep. Let’s go.”

They walked out the front door, the OT carefully guiding Buffy down the front porch steps by the hand and forearm.

“Okay,” the OT said, “what I want you to do is walk from this point of the sidewalk to--" she looked at their surroundings-- "where it meets that street, and then walk back to me. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” Buffy half laughed.

Buffy did as she was asked, wobbling a little after the pivot to return to her assistant.

“Dizzy?”

“A little.”

“Okay, then this next exercise will be a bit more challenging, so I’ll walk with you.”

Buffy suddenly felt nervous. _Stop that. You’re the Slayer._

The OT took her hand and said, “This time as you walk, I want you to turn your head slowly from side to side, like this.” She demonstrated. “Like you’re taking a few seconds to gaze at scenery on either side--even if there isn’t really anything that interests you. Sound good?”

“Sounds…dizzying.”

“I’ll be right here with you.” The worker was smiling.

Buffy got it done, but not without getting all Weebley-wobbly while taking several of her steps, a couple times even bumping into her assistant.

“Sorry,” she said once.

“Don’t worry about it. Comes with the territory.”

Nothing more was said between them other than the occasional praise from the OT.

* * *

When the respiratory therapist came, he basically just listened to Buffy’s breathing, had her blow in the thingy-mer-bobber, asked if she’d been doing it twice a day on her own, lectured her when she said not every day, and left. She didn’t like him nearly as much as the OT because—well, he wasn’t nearly as much help and didn’t really act like he cared as much.

* * *

Two weeks later  
Buffy had finally regained her full strength. The only thing that remained was a stupid cough that wouldn’t go away; it sounded terrible, and every time she had a coughing fit her throat swelled up so she couldn’t breathe. Willow told her it was exactly what her own asthma was like, and Buffy should ask her doctor for an inhaler.

Buffy went to her regular doctor, and he said he couldn’t do anything for her until the cough cleared up because she was still recovering from the pneumonia. He put her on an antibiotic and told her to come back in 2 weeks.

The cough got worse instead of better, and Buffy was scared she was going to have to be admitted again, so this time she made an appointment with one of the nurse practitioners at her doctor’s practice. The nurse practitioner prescribed her a low-dose rescue inhaler and told her if her cough didn’t improve in 2 weeks, to return to see her. She also told her to stop the antibiotics because it sounded like she had asthmatic bronchitis, and taking too many antibiotics could make her body resistant to them.

Buffy’s cough went away within 2 days after she started using the rescue inhaler.

So, now she was a Slayer with asthma. And, a Slayer who had contracted and fallen victim to bacterial pneumonia and been ill with it for weeks.

Thank God she wasn’t the only Slayer in the world anymore! And, thank God Faith was on their side now.  


* * *


End file.
